Hawai'i is a small place on a large planet; Kanaka Maoli, the Indigenous people of the islands, today comprise just 20% of the total population within the state, and less than 1% of the total U.S. population across the nation (U.S. Census Bureau, n.d.). Yet Hawai'i, promoted for centuries as an exotic tourist destination, and Hawaiian culture as…

Indigenous digital storytelling and research are as much about the process of community relationships as they are about the development of digital products and research outcomes. Indigenous researchers, digital storytelling producers, and academics work in different communities with research collaborators who are indigenous community members,…

After the war in 1866, slaves became the owners of the lands they once farmed for their masters. The land they farmed became their own because of the nature of Creek citizenship and land tenure. The 1866 treaty of peace between the United States federal government and the Creek Nation (also known as the Muskogee Nation) declared that freed slaves…

In 1921, the Greenlandic anthropologist Knud Rasmussen set out to travel twenty thousand miles by dog team across Inuit Nunaat--the Inuit homeland. During this three-year journey--the famous Fifth Thule Expedition--Rasmussen was struck by the similarities in the language and culture of Inuit communities across the entire Arctic. Considering the…

Storytelling is an integral part of life for Indigenous Australians. Before the arrival of Europeans and continuing after; gathered around the campfire in the evening stories were and are still shared; passed from one generation to the next. In modern times, in addition to a continuing oral traditions, another method of storytelling has risen from…

Teachers' knowing about students and their families is critical to ensuring relevant classroom instruction. The "Family Storytelling through Dichos" approach is explored as a culturally and linguistically appropriate mechanism for learning about students' backgrounds. This article posits that this approach may be a viable one, since it is rooted…

The Office of Indian Education (OIE) in the U.S. Department of Education funds competitive grants for Native American school leadership preparation programs in order to improve the education of disadvantaged students identified under the 2001 "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) reauthorization of "Elementary and Secondary Education…

The thrust of the paper is the contention that, in their general application, proverbs are to be understood as a communal property. In specific terms, however, and as Isidore Okpewho, in African Oral Literature... (1992) affirms, "every proverb must have started its life as the product of the genius of an individual oral artist. But it…

To learn productively and experience academic success, students need access to curricula and instructional approaches that are "culturally relevant" and "culturally responsive". Culturally relevant/responsive pedagogy uses "cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes" and thus "empowers students…

This article explores mother tongue awareness among several Brazilian Amerindian societies in contrast with the perception of the importance of the vernacular according to policy makers and academics. The perception of the vernacular as important is discussed in the light of continuing debate among Brazil's educators concerning appropriate…

Traditional stories include myths, legends, and folktales rooted in the oral storytelling traditions of a given people. Through story, people pass their religious beliefs, customs, history, lifestyle, language, values, and the places they hold sacred from one generation to the next. As such, stories and their telling are more than simple…

Among American Indian Pueblo tribes, community-based language revitalisation initiatives have been established in response to a growing language shift towards English. This has been most prominent among school age children, prompting some tribes to extend tribal language programmes into local public schools. For centuries, the transmission of…

In this paper we examine discourse and interaction during Saturday morning religious instruction classes in a Gitano (Spanish Romani) evangelist church. The focus is on adults as literacy mediators for the children in the process of learning ways to use and interpret the Bible. The analysis centres on two aspects: (1) the forms of textuality that…

Two-thirds of the world's conflicts are in Africa. In particular, the Great Lakes region (Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Tanzania) continues to see conflicts that are complex, extreme and seemingly intractable. By exploring the narrative experiences of those most affected by the conflicts in the region--specifically…

In this article, the author examines Zitkala-Sa's translation of an Indian legend from Dakota into English. Her title, "Translation Moves," refers not only to Zitkala-Sa's rhetorical strategies, but also to different meanings of translation, as well as to the complex and dynamic process that translation entails. There is literal translation: the…